how to upload your senior honors thesis
TRANSCRIPT
How to Upload Your Senior Honors Thesis
Once your paper is in its final form (i.e., you have thoroughly proof read your paper, your
committee members have approved it, and you have formatted the paper according to your
discipline’s guidelines), save it as a PDF file with embedded fonts.
Use the following format to name the file and save your FINAL paper:
Your Last Name, Your First Name-Honors Project.pdf
Example: Schonerstedt, Donna-Honors Project.pdf
(The process below usually works better on a PC instead of a Mac.)
The simplest way to save the PDF file with embedded fonts is to start with a Microsoft Word
document and then click “Save As.” Change the “Save as type” drop-down menu to “PDF.”
Before you click “Save,” click on “Options.”
In the “Options” dialogue box, check the “PDF/A” box under “PDF options.”
Save as type: PDF
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The PDF/A document type is used for the digital preservation of electronic documents.
PDF/A differs from regular PDF by ensuring that the document is suited for long-term electronic
archival.
The TCU Library provides instructions on how to embed fonts using Adobe Acrobat here:
http://library.tcu.edu/submit-thesis-or-dissertation.asp#tab_pdf and here:
https://honorspapers.tcu.edu/about/submitting.
If you have saved two or more separate Microsoft Word documents (.doc or .docx) for your
“front matter” and the content of your paper, you will need to combine the files into a single
PDF document.
To combine them into one PDF document, you will need to use Adobe Acrobat (not just Adobe
Reader). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat on your computer, you may ask an Honors College
academic advisor to use one of the Honors College computers, or you may use a computer in the
TCU Library.
Here are some online instructions on how to combine files into one PDF document:
-- http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/merge-pdf-files.html
-- http://www.wikihow.com/Merge-PDF-Files
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Once your Thesis is saved as a single PDF document with embedded fonts, you will need to
upload it to the Departmental Honors Project Submissions site.
1. Go to this page: https://honorspapers.tcu.edu/
2. Sign in using your TCU username and password.
3. Click on “New Submission.”
4. Your name, e-mail address, and TCU ID number should appear in the
“Name,” “Email,” and “TCU ID” fields, respectively. Please make sure that
all of the information is correct. You may edit these fields by typing in them
directly, if need be.
123456789
Super Frog
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5. Enter the full title of your Senior Honors Thesis. You cannot bold or
italicize text in this field.
6. Select the year and month of your graduation from TCU (e.g., May 2016,
August 2016, December 2016, etc.).
7. Under “Document Type,” select “Senior Honors Thesis.”
123456789
Super Frog
The Effects of Caffeine on Students’ Percep
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8. Select the academic department in which you are completing Departmental
Honors.
If your major/department does not appear in the drop-down menu, please e-mail
[email protected] to let us know.
9. (Optional) Enter keywords that someone might use when searching for the
main topics in your paper.
10. Embargo Type
You have the option of embargoing your paper. This means that you can make it
non-viewable to the public. We encourage you to make your paper viewable to the public
unless you have a valid reason to “hide” it from public view. Here are a few reasons why
you might make it non-viewable:
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Your paper contains very personal stories about yourself or others, and you wish
to protect the anonymity of the subjects and/or the author (yourself).
Your paper contains information of commercial or monetary value, and you wish
to protect it.
You wish to protect a patent application.
You wish to protect intellectual property rights associated with the publication of
the content.
You wish to honor a pre-existing contractual agreement.
You intend to publish the paper in a professional journal or other professional
publication that requires the material has never before been published.
In most cases, it is fine to make your paper viewable to the public. If you meet any of
the above criteria, or if you are unsure what to do, please check with your Supervising
Professor about the embargo option.
For “Embargo Type,” you may select:
None No embargo; the paper will be viewable to the public.
Two Year The paper will be non-viewable for two years.
Indefinite An indefinite embargo means that your project will never be
accessible to the public unless you contact the TCU Library
and request that the embargo be removed.
Even if you choose to embargo your paper, the bibliographic information (author, title,
abstract, metadata, etc.) will be publicly accessible in the TCU Library catalog.
For more information about embargoing your project, please see
https://honorspapers.tcu.edu/about/submitting.
11. In the “Abstract” box, provide a brief summary of the main points of your
paper. (You may use the same text that you used in the Abstract section of
your paper.)
See screen shot below.
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12. Next, enter your committee members.
Use the drop-down menu to select the appropriate role for each committee member:
Committee Supervisor, or
In-Department Committee Member, or
Out-of-Department Committee Member, or
Optional Fourth Committee Member
Many students have three committee members: the Supervising Professor, the In-
Department member, and the Out-of-Department member. Some students, such as
students in the Neeley School of Business, have TWO committee members: the
Supervising Professor and an Out-of-Department member.
Enter each committee member’s Name, Email address, and Department.
**After entering a professor’s first and last name, you may click on “Lookup.” If the
professor’s information is located on the TCU e-mail server, the system will
automatically populate the professor’s Email address and Department. If this doesn’t
happen, then please type in the information yourself. Please be sure to enter the
committee member’s CORRECT E-MAIL ADDRESS.
Some students have a fourth committee member. If you do, then please be sure to enter
his/her information also.
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13. Next, upload your file(s) to the system.
--Click the green “Add files” button.
--Select the file you want to upload.
--Click on the blue “Start” button to begin the upload.
Points to remember before you upload:
--Save your file in the PDF/A (archival-safe) format. Doing so works better on a PC than
on a Mac. (See the instructions on page 1 of this document.)
--If you have numerous Word files, combine them into one PDF file.
--Embed your fonts. The system will notify you if your fonts are not embedded.
In most cases, you should submit only one file. Typically, the only reason to submit more
than one file would be if you have supplementary audio or video files (e.g., art, dance,
film, theatre, music majors).
14. Check the checkbox at the bottom of the page, and then click the blue
“Submit” button.
You will see a green box that confirms you have successfully submitted your paper.
15. Ensure that you have uploaded the correct PDF document (with embedded
fonts). Then, click the blue “Notify committee” button.
16. You will receive a confirmation message at the top of the page that confirms
that your committee has been notified:
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17. Your committee members will automatically receive an e-mail notification
requesting that they use the online system to approve your Departmental
Honors Project.
If you have any problems with the Departmental Honors Project online submission process,
please contact the site developer, Jacob Brown (TCU Library) at [email protected].
If you have any questions about fulfilling Departmental Honors requirements, please contact the
Honors College office at 817.257.7125 or [email protected].